We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The Shutdown, the Showdown, and the Urgent Need To Repolarize... For Revolution

Click here to access article from Revolution.

I think the article provides a very sound class analysis and insights on the current capitalist political dispute over the Affordable Care Act. However, I think that the author(s) make too much of this dispute and use it to launch into a lengthy exposition of Bob Avakian's views on revolution. Therefore, I recommend the material  from the introduction through section I only.
Different political representatives of the capitalist-imperialist class have different ideas on what should be done politically. They differ over how the masses should be led to think and act, what reforms should or should not be made, and overall what should be the “acceptable limits” and governing assumptions of political discourse and ideological principle. They struggle this out through elections, the media, and in other forms. (This function also includes allowing the masses to undertake action for some reforms to deal with their conditions, to make the state seem legitimate in their eyes, and to confine their thinking to how to keep a fundamentally exploitative, oppressive, and unjust system running, rather than overthrowing it.)
As I see it, the two capitalist groups differ as to how to manage the increasing government debt. The dominant segment wants to continue with business as usual: creating more money, provide some token medical coverage to ordinary Americans to keep the hoi polloi pacified, and to continue their military dominance of the world. The rebel group led by the Tea Party understandably want to stop borrowing money from foreign governments, and to a lesser extent from The Fed. And, they don't want money spent on ordinary Americans in any form. Otherwise, they have few problems with spending money on domestic surveillance, militarizing local police forces, military weapons, and incursions throughout the world.